Surviving Climate Anxiety: A Guide to Coping, Healing, and Thriving

by Thomas Doherty

Learn how to cope with and heal from climate anxiety in this groundbreaking guide by “the most prominent American advocate of ecopsychology” (New York Times).
 
If you ever find yourself doomscrolling news stories about climate change, experience bouts of panic about looming climate-related disasters, or are overcome with sadness thinking about the state of the Earth we are leaving future generations to inherit, you are not alone. With climate disasters mounting and solutions feeling ever more elusive, eco-anxiety is rapidly becoming one of the biggest mental health threats of our time.

Surviving Climate Anxiety is the essential guide to coping with the psychological impacts of persistent environmental crisis. In it, the world's leading climate anxiety expert Dr. Thomas Doherty shares his pioneering, evidence-based methods to help
  Reclaim your nervous manage your thoughts and feelings, and stress about climate change Understand your environmental your history, values, and connection to the natural world Prioritize Utilize arts, creativity, and spirituality as tools for flourishing Liberate yourself from living as a climate overcome fear of climate disasters and tend to eco-depression and grief Broaden your horizons of cultivate optimism through stewardship and action  
Packed with practical, research-backed tips and dozens of stories - from the geologist haunted by images of melting glaciers, to the young couple agonizing over whether to bring a child into a world on fire, to a twenty-something wondering what it was like back when people believed in a future - Surviving Climate Anxiety  provides the tools to cope, heal, and flourish, even in these times.

Genres: Self Help, Psychology, Nonfiction, Environment, Mental Health

416 pages, Hardcover

Published October 7, 2025

Reviews

[Mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a well done self-help type psychology book that is obviously focused on climate anxiety, but whose principles are more broadly applicable to current event anxiety. I thought it did a nice job of taking what is probably the advice given for most types of anxiety (act on what you can, accept that you can't change everything, & let the rest go) and breaks it into nice tactical bites.

[Nina Sander · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t often feel like a book has been written for me, but Surviving Climate Anxiety felt exactly that way. As a therapist who works with clients struggling to live meaningfully in an era of environmental collapse—and as a person who has wrestled with her own, at times crippling, climate anxiety—Thomas Doherty’s words landed with uncanny precision.

He writes with the rare combination of scientific clarity and deep psychological compassion. Rather than pathologizing climate distress, he normalizes it as a sign of moral attunement—a natural response to an unnatural situation. Doherty doesn’t tell us to “calm down” or “think positive.” Instead, he helps us metabolize fear, guilt, grief, and outrage into something usable—into care, connection, and action.

I appreciated how he moves fluidly between the personal and the systemic: between the intimacy of a therapy session and the vastness of ecological collapse. His stories of clients, activists, and everyday people struggling to stay awake to the crisis mirror the kinds of conversations I have in my own practice, and in my own head.

There were moments when I felt held by this book, as though Doherty were gently reminding me that it’s possible to remain both awake and well. If you care deeply about the world and are finding it harder to hold that caring without breaking, this book belongs on your nightstand.

[Bargain Sleuth Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been anxious about the survival of our planet since grade school more than 40 years ago. Gaylord Nelson, who was a governor and senator from our state, Wisconsin, was one of the founders of Earth Day in 1970. It was a big deal in school every year, and I’ve always been environmentally conscious. As I’ve gotten older, my anxiety about the planet has only gotten worse, knowing that climate change is largely a man-made problem and not enough people are doing enough to slow down/fix the problem. The current administration’s slashing many safeguards from the Environmental Protection Agency, the push to get back to more fossil fuels instead of wind or solar energy, it just brings about more anxiety about what kind of world I’m leaving my kids.

Surviving Climate Anxiety is a self-help book, focusing on the psychology of current event anxiety. Anyone who has been treated for anxiety may recognize some of advice the author gives. In the era of a collapsing environment, it’s best to focus on what you can act on and accept that you can’t change everything. Eco-grief is a real thing, and this book offers concrete ways to move from panic to purpose.

As someone who takes mental health very seriously, as well as someone who has always been a crunchy granola eco-friendly person, I hope those of you who also feel this climate anxiety to take care of yourself, both physically and mentally. We have a long battle ahead. Surviving Climate Anxiety is a great resource to start balancing what you can/cannot do for the planet and for yourself.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would seem that those of us who lose sleep at night over climate change are in good company. So much so that practicing psychologist, Dr. Thomas Doherty wrote a book to address it. Father and widower, Doherty focuses on “post doom” rather than heavy depressing statistics. He blends cognitive behavioral with several other counseling tools—including spirituality—to counter climate anxiety in his clients.

To set the stage, Doherty identifies two climate emergencies :
First is the physical emergency of fire, heat, storms and flooding that we are experiencing.
Second is the mental health crisis we suffer when dealing with the above losses as well as our own anxiety and depression.

People experiencing physical catastrophes suffer in many horrible ways, but those of us who witness their suffering and the loss of our natural resources also suffer vicariously.

According to Doherty, our current climate crisis is more complicated, tragic, and unjust than we think. But there is also better news than we know. The majority of people care about the natural world and want to take care of it.

In his book, Doherty promises to help us reframe climate anxiety to work for us, rather than against us.
He outlines a 5 part process, starting with small coping skills, to skills drawn from therapy, to reclaiming happiness, to taking action.

To illustrate the strategies, he shares amalgam “case studies” of clients who have dealt with climate anxiety in different ways.
Reading their stories and the author’s sympathetic analysis made me feel less alone and more understood a part of a community of sufferers. In fact, the appendix includes close to 50 pages of resources, groups, organizations, and works to approach next.

Ultimately hopeful and profoundly empathetic, Surviving Climate Anxiety is a comprehensive and comforting manual, and Doherty, a competent and benevolent guide.

Thank you to Little Brown and Company via NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[grace ᵕ̈ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an essential read for anyone who is struggling with climate anxiety and doesn’t know what to do. The author—Dr. Doherty—is a clinical psychologist and mental health therapist who specializes in environmental psychology. Dr. Doherty offers a unique perspective about climate change and one’s position in the world, and he guides the reader to think for themselves and equips them with the tools needed to navigate this world. He uses his own life experience, tools, and client stories to help the reader navigate their own feelings about climate change and how to take action in a world that is consequentially suffering climate change’s effects.

Another thing that I liked about this book was that Dr. Doherty discusses social justice, environmental justice, advocacy, marginalized groups and environmental racism, and Native people and the land. All of these issues are so important, and the intersectionality between all of them is essential to combatting climate change through all levels of advocacy.

Dr. Doherty also left us with an important reminder that advocacy is needed at all levels—whether front lines or behind the scenes—and our role is so important. He did an exceptional job at encouraging readers on every part of their climate advocacy journey to keep pushing forward and looking ahead. I appreciate books like this, and this one was just so well rounded and talked about such a timely and important topic in a digestible and approachable way. This book will sit with me for a long time.

[Anna Schaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surviving Climate Anxiety is an important book that artists, therapists, parents and organizations should have in their emergency toolkits. As a professional musician who is also a therapist, I find the chapter called ART particularly grounding and inspiring. Doherty invites us to preserve (and if we've lost it, to restore) our sense of beauty about the world by actively appreciating and creating through the forms we're drawn to - from the grandeur of symphonies, to the graphics of video games, to those simple, personal acts like singing in the shower we might otherwise forget when we're stressed out and anxious. The link to a 4-hour "Surviving Climate Anxiety Official Playlist" is a great starting point for the musically inclined.

[Stella Gruben · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was exactly what I needed. I particularly liked the chapter called Spirit, about the power of tapping into one’s ecospiritual beliefs as a way of buoying ourselves when we’re inundated with climate anxiety. The mindfulness exercise about the bulldozer in the rainforest was a perfect parable.

[BookwormBraggings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting approach to dealing with anxiety, there's some useful information in it

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it!